La Costa Canyon ready for Avocado West play

It was exactly what both coaches were looking for, a good, tough game to end the nonleague portion of the season.

“This is what we needed,” La Costa Canyon coach Dave Cassaw said after a come-from-behind 60-55 win at San Marcos.

“It was a tough environment, good crowd, against a tough opponent.

“We were down, and we responded. I’m really proud of the effort.”

The Mavericks (13-4) led 11-5 to start the game but were outscored 22-11 over the next 12 minutes and trailed by six at the half.

LCC took the lead back with 4:20 to play in the third quarter, but San Marcos went on a 12-7 run and led by four after three quarters.

A Logan Wazny 3-pointer with 5:50 to play tied the game at 49, and the lead changed hands or the game was tied on the next six scores.

A Wazny 3-pointer with 2:15 to play gave the Mavericks a 56-55 lead and a Wazny hustle rebound led to a Graham Cook basket with 1:40 remaining. A pair of Cook free throws sealed the deal with 13 seconds to play.

“When we run our offense and get defensive stops, we’re pretty tough,” said Wazny, who led all scorers with 27 points.

“When we get defensive stops, we can really get rolling. We get energy and feed off those stops. We played with a lot more energy in the second half.

“This was a really nice win against a team I didn’t expect to be so big.”

San Marcos (12-5) has four players over 6-feet-4 and has only three seniors on the team.

Cook backed Wazny with 13 points for LCC while Kody Clouet led San Marcos with 17 points.

La Costa Canyon opens Avocado West League play Tuesday against Sage Creek (7-9). Then it’s an early league showdown with No. 3 Torrey Pines (14-3).

The rest of the league includes Canyon Crest (12-3), Carlsbad (11-7) and San Dieguito (7-9).

“The league is going to be really tough,” Cassaw said. “Everyone knows about Torrey Pines, but Canyon Crest has gotten off to a great start and Carlsbad is a lot better than people gave them credit.”

Cassaw’s hope is that a tough nonleague schedule — that included a loss to Poway earlier this week, a loss to Rancho Bernardo and wins over El Camino and Santa Fe Christian — has his Mavericks ready to go Tuesday.

“It doesn’t do you any good to beat up weaker teams outside the league,” Cassaw said. “We’ve played good teams. So I hope we’re ready to go.”

San Marcos starts Avocado East League play Wednesday against El Camino.